Preventative Maintenance Services
This bearing shows a catastrophic failure. It was caused from running with the incorrect tolerance. As a result other items in the headstock were damaged and had to be repaired as well. A bearing this size can not be purchased from your local bearing house. It had to be special made, causing the customer to be down for many months. By having periodical preventative maintenance performed, this problem may have been found sooner and prevented.
The damage you see in this housing was caused when the ball screw nut failed prematurely. Simply installing a new screw and nut will not correct this issue. Having someone regularly check these moving parts of your machine may prevent this kind of damage from occurring.
This lathe quick change gear box shows signs of gross neglect. Simply maintaining the oil level and regular changes would have prevented this issue. This became a very costly repair for the customer.
The proper oil and correct levels are vitally important to the inner workings of your machine. This includes the bearings, shifters and gears. Most people remember to do this with their cars but forget the machines. Simple overlooks can cause the customer to have major machine damage and costly downtime.
The damage shown in this picture could have been prevented by greasing the bushings on a regular schedule. This was a difficult part to remove for repair. Most machines can be repaired, but it requires time. Often the customer does not have the time but has no chose. A scheduled shut down for preventative maintenance can sometimes seem expensive or a nuisance when trying to keep up production. That little bit of time may save you thousands in the long run by helping prevent unscheduled breakdowns.
A well kept way surface will keep your machine and product flowing. In these pictures you will see that these machine bed ways have be resurfaced using a power scraper. This allows the proper pockets in the metal surface for oil retention. Without these the oil would not flow correctly and cause the surfaces to stay dry and cause galling. When a way surface reaches that point it is a major and costly repair.